What things have gone wrong with the car?
Brand new, so nothing. Will give updates as I put more miles on.
General comments?
This is a great car. The 5 cylinder has plenty of power and the handling is better than similar cars. The design is a classic, very unique; cuts into the rear headroom a little, but whatever. My only slight problem with the car is that I wish it handled better. (It handles well, but I am looking for more) Maybe I will upgrade suspension later on. I know VW has had some reliability problems in the past, but I honestly think that these redesigns will be Volkswagen's savior.
The is at about 13000 miles. No major problems. Two things I should point out:
1.Power windows will ocassionaly roll all the way down when I roll them up for some reason.
2. It does have a squeak/rattle or two.
Both of these showed up relatively at the same time, other than that I have really enjoyed this. I get a combined mpg of about 31, and that includes a gas-eating hill (3 miles) up to my house. I still highly recommend this car.
We own a 2007 Beetle Convertible, and yes it's fun to drive, handles well, and surprisingly, it rides as good as our Yukon with Michelin's AND autoride! But I do have to knock on it a little bit, this car had 25 miles on it when we bought it and at about 100 miles, the convertible latch just broke! (It wouldn't stay latched) Then at maybe 700 miles the driver window would be rolling up then just roll back down!(Luckily the dealer was able to fix these problems). From the day we bought it, the car has smelled like anti-freeze when you turn on the heat, and the dealer can't do anything about it. I don't know if all the VW's are like this, but when you go to press the gas, it acts like it has to think about it before it takes off. (Strange, but you understand) The car gets good MPG's but not what I thought it would be, maybe 24 around town, running an average speed of 45, but on the plus side, it costs only $48.00 to fill up opposed to our Yukon that cost's $100.00 to fill up. In my opinion, if you want a cute car and don't care how reliable it is, this one is PERFECT! But if you want cute AND reliable, I'd look for something else.
I could be wrong, but I think that slight hesitation when you press on the accelerator is from the PZEV characteristic of the engine.
I hope these new ones do not have the same window issues of the older versions. It cost roughly $800 to repair a window regulator when it fails. It is a pulley and wire design that is expensive and man-hour intensive to repair. In addition, the older ones had electrical issues with lights, A/C and other components.
